Paradise Divided: A Portrait of Lebanon

“Alex Klaushofer could be Lebanon's new Lady Hester Stanhope, except that her understanding and love of Lebanon are greater than her predecessor's. The Lebanese in all their complexity, wonder, deceit and kindness shine through this delightful book.”

Charles Glass, author of Tribes with Flags

This timely portrait of Lebanon exposes the fault lines that underlie the current crisis in the Middle East, and charts the country's attempts to rebuild a fragile peace after its long civil war and recent conflict with Israel.

Part reportage, part travel narrative, "Paradise Divided" chronicles the delicate web of relationships that make up contemporary Lebanese society. Drawing on interviews with community leaders and relationships with ordinary people, it reveals a richly-textured social fabric in which Sunni and Shia Muslims, Druze and Christians of all kinds, from Maronite Catholics to evangelical Protestants, strive to maintain a delicate balance. It shows how Lebanon's religious communities, their identities formed by history, landscape and their relationships with one another, came to be what they are today - and how their different perspectives can lead to potentially destructive tensions. The reader follows the country's changing fortunes after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanese soil through to the aftermath of Israel's military campaign and the new political battlelines dividing Lebanese society.